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I have a bunch of thumb drives, and many of them don't have any writing on them to indicate that they are USB 3.0.

In Ubuntu; how can I ascertain if they are USB 3.0 when I plug them in?

Anon
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4 Answers4

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Make sure that you have a USB flash Drive plugged in.

Open terminal. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:

lsusb

That will list USB information. Look for the USB flash drive info as shown in the image below:

enter image description here

Then do 

lsusb -D /dev/bus/usb/003/023

To get more info about the USB flash drive, and look for bcdUSB, and that will tell you if its USB 2 or 3, plus as Dan said in his comment, USB 3 connectors are usually Blue.

enter image description here

Source:lsusb Man page

Community
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Mitch
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  • Mine says bcdUSB 2.10 ; what does that mean? – Anon Apr 02 '15 at 00:27
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    bcdUSB 2.10 indicates USB2. – Mitch Apr 02 '15 at 02:46
  • So this does not make sense. I have a Lexar "USB 3.0" device, with the blue interior, and it is showing up as "bcdUSB 2.10". Is this false advertising on their part? – Anon Apr 02 '15 at 20:20
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    What about you system, does it have USB 3.0? – Mitch Apr 02 '15 at 20:22
  • The X230 supposedly has one usb 3.0 slot on the right. It is coloured yellow, while the other two are coloured blue. – Anon Apr 02 '15 at 20:26
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    The yellow connector is always On USB connector, and I'm not sure if its USB 3. Try plugging into the Blue ports, and run the command in the answer, and see if it shows USB 3. – Mitch Apr 02 '15 at 20:32
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    I know that it has been quite some time, but I possibly found something interesting: I bought two (supposedly identical) Kingston DataTraveler G4 16GB USB sticks which are supposed to have USB 3.0. One of them is listed with "bcdUSB 3.00" and the other one is listed with "bcdUSB 2.10". The 2.10 one behaves a bit strange (USB 2.0 speed, gets rather warm while idling and uses up to ~130mA while the 3.00 one only uses ~50mA). (I'll return it to the shop) – Kai Jul 14 '15 at 23:42
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This test does not read the version from the device but tests for actual capabilities. If you don't have USB3.0 port, this test will give you false results so make sure to use USB 3.0 (or higher) port.

Open terminal and start by running this command:

lsusb

You should get a list of all USB devices in your system that looks something like this:

bushman@bushman-asus:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b40a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 13d3:3362 IMC Networks 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:1042 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. 
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 056a:0065 Wacom Co., Ltd Bamboo
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Try to find your device (if you can't find it, unplug it, and run the command again and compare what is gone), my device in this case is:

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:1042 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Now when you know the bus and device numbers run the same command with additional parameters:

lsusb -v -s 4:2

'-v' is for more verbosity, '-s [bus]:[device]' is to choose what to display. Change the numbers to reflect your device's bus:device numbers. Now you should get a long list of parameters but somewhere near the top of the list you should see parameter 'bcdUSB' and a corresponding value:

bcdUSB               3.00

The number is USB version currently in use, in my case USB 3.0. It's always the best version your system AND the device can support at the time so make sure you plug your devices into USB 3.0 port for this test.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Bushman

InnerBushman
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4

If the inside of the USB is blue then the USB is 3.0.

Zanna
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Element Tech
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3

USB 3.0 connectors are only usually blue. What makes a connector USB 3 instead of USB 2 is the presence of five extra pins, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#/media/File:Connector_USB_3_IMGP6024_wp.jpg

If the connector doesn't have the row of five pins then the drive can't be USB 3.0. If the connector does have the row of five pins then it would be very stupid if the drive isn't at least USB 3.0.

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
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